I think architecture and urban planning have lots of elements in common. They both create the shape of places, like cities or towns, and they both have to design a successful development for those places. Urban planners design buildings, groups of buildings, spaces and landscapes. In the same way, Architects also design buildings, groups of buildings, spaces and landscapes, but in my opinion the biggest difference is that Architects keep in mind factors as climate, while Urban planners keep in mind lots of factors that Architects don’t! Urban planners, are always thinking about land use, assess , entrances, future developments, people, law and economy, and are not designing places “solely as objects”. However, to me, the new generation of Architects are currently planning buildings taking into account those elements, too.
In Caracas, I consider there are a lot of examples of great development of Architecture and Urban Planning, but only in specific places, and the bad side is that those places are a minority part of the city. Buildings such as “Parque Cristal” and “Museo de Bellas Artes” or places like “Ciudad Universitaria” are great examples! On the contrary, Caracas has millions of square meters that are not planned at all. It is common to see on our hills, those not planned and bad constructed houses that we call “ranchos”, which have very unhealthy conditions and are very dangerous places to be in case of earthquakes or even in heavy rainfalls or storms. These two conditions, great developments and not planned contructions, running at the same time, make a very rarely city shape, that makes Caracas an interesting, but not really planned city.http://vocaroo.com/?media=vprZ4l9OrJkDmDvUt
In Caracas, I consider there are a lot of examples of great development of Architecture and Urban Planning, but only in specific places, and the bad side is that those places are a minority part of the city. Buildings such as “Parque Cristal” and “Museo de Bellas Artes” or places like “Ciudad Universitaria” are great examples! On the contrary, Caracas has millions of square meters that are not planned at all. It is common to see on our hills, those not planned and bad constructed houses that we call “ranchos”, which have very unhealthy conditions and are very dangerous places to be in case of earthquakes or even in heavy rainfalls or storms. These two conditions, great developments and not planned contructions, running at the same time, make a very rarely city shape, that makes Caracas an interesting, but not really planned city.http://vocaroo.com/?media=vprZ4l9OrJkDmDvUt